Long Overdue
by Chocoegg333
Summary: "So does this 'Strange Policy' apply to my sister, too?" Some time after his return to the normal world, Stephen Strange pays an uninvited visit to one of his relatives. One-shot. Rated T for mentions of past drug use, depression, and some swearing.


**A/N: Something I've had in mind since I saw Doctor Strange. I found out while writing it that Strange actually _does_ have a sister. This does not pertain to canon, nor was she initially inspired by the character "Donna" (though I chose the name of my oc in reference to that). It's just a simple story of reconciliation between siblings, *warnings I guess, for mentions of drug use, depression and swearing.**

 **Also, I don't think it's this way in the movie, but in this one-shot I made it so Strange was away for three years at Kamar Taj. Just seemed to make more sense that way.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own anything pertaining to the property of Doctor Strange. Diane is completely of my own design, and although I realize she may seem reminiscent of Strange's actual sister in the comics—it was not intended as such.**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

 _"_ _Heart rate's far past the normal."_

 _"Transfer in three, two one—up!"_

 _"She's shaking too much, get me some aides to hold her down!"_

 _"What could you tell from the state she was found in? We need to know what she took."_

 _"Beginning chest compressions."_

Nurse Palmer stepped back from the stretcher, chest heaving. Thankfully, so was her patient's.

Her eyes fluttered nervously, eventually widening at the sight of the tube stuck down her throat. Bare arms convulsed and one of them began to paw at the ripped edges of her t-shirt.

"No, no! Don't!" Nurse Palmer slammed the woman's hands back down before they could reach and pull out the air tube. Too weak to resist her, the woman lay slumped beneath Nurse Palmer's grip.

She stared up at her incredulously, tears of pain in her eyes. She recognized the Nurse. From the article; in the picture, on his arm.

"You're alive. This is helping you stay alive," Nurse Palmer told her. But even with the nod she was given, she was hesitant to let go of her. With the amounts they had traced in the woman's bloodstream, she wondered if that was what the woman had been trying to avoid.

* * *

A shadow. That's what I've always been to my brother.

Sometimes I wonder what the two years between my birth and his were like. Those thoughts always lead me to speculating whether or not I was a mistake—one they tried to rectify with him.

By the time he had skipped second grade, won the state spelling bee and become our school's nominee for not one, but three full-ride scholarships, I suspected that my parents may have been thinking the same.

While I annoyed all with my un-curb-able ADHD, he was reciting the letters that spelled "ophthalmology"to an auditorium of enraptured khaki-clad spectators.

 _Noun; the branch of medicine dealing with the function, anatomy and diseases of the eye._

While he was graduating from our high school—at seventeen (full honors, top of the class, yearbook award for most dickish er, _likely to succeed_ _)_ —I was skipping my A&W math class to go and smoke with my "friends."

As my brother started his fourth year of uni (masters' _and_ a PHD—at the same time!), I was shoved into my first of rehabilitation. Or, as my parents called it from the summer house: communal restoration.

We haven't talked much as late. I'll occasionally get a call from him on National Siblings-this-isn't-a-real-holiday day. I assume that it's only so he can feel good about himself.

My brother: _Doctor_ Stephen Strange.

* * *

"Diane, you need to come and see him."

A sigh: justifiably exasperated.

"Diane? Are you sti-"

 _"-Still here,"_ she interrupted, wanting to huck the phone across the room.

 _"Diane."_

"Don't 'Diane' me, Christine."

A pause. Diane thought she had hung up until Christine started all over again.

"He's depressed, Dee. He won't admit it, but… Well, you'd know just as well as I would."

Diane wanted to scream at the woman on the phone. Of course she would know. And no one called her Dee anymore— _no one._

 _"His hands…_ you don't understand. He just needs someone to talk to…"

"Oh, Diane laughed mercilessly. _"I_ don't understand?"

Christine fell into silence when she realized her mistake.

 _"He_ needs someone to talk to? _He's_ depressed? Where was he fifteen years ago, huh, Christine? Where was he when I… when I…"

"Diane. You know that's not what I meant."

One hand instinctively tugging at her brown hair, Diane yelled into the phone, "oh, bull- _shit!_ Stop trying to kiss my ass since you're not-" Diane's thumb involuntarily—thankfully—twitched down on the 'end call' button before her sentence was completed.

"-doing the same to him, anymore…" She gingerly put her phone down; then, closing her hands over her ears, she brought her knees up to her chest.

* * *

10:30 PM: the lights in the recovery ward were dimmed.

Christine Palmer was stopped in the doorway, one hand flexed over her clipboard, the other prepared to hit the panic button.

Visiting hours had ended hours earlier, yet, _somehow,_ hunched next to Stephen's bed, there was a figure.

When she was about to call for help, they looked up, revealing their face in the process.

Christine let out a breath; it was Diane.

She took a step forward, but was stopped by her look.

Diane had the odd talent of telling someone exactly what she wanted—with _out_ needing to even speak. Right now, her face was telling Christine to leave.

So, against her own judgement, she did.

"Your sister was here the other night."

Stephen looked up from the peas-steak-and-green-salad-stuff he was currently mutilating. "Why would _she_ be _here?"_ he asked insensitively. The thought of her skulking around in the dark didn't unnerve him; it seemed like something she would be well-versed in.

Christine placed her hands behind her back. "Well… I _may_ have asked her to come and see you?"

He paused before asking the question that always seemed to accompany his sister. "Why?"

Christine grimaced, choosing to sit down in the visitor's chair next to his bed. How was she going to explain this without deliberately bringing up the subject of depression. Her instincts told her that he would deny feeling that way, and that wouldn't be good.

"I know it gets lonely in here; we all feel it."

He scoffed.

She continued, "and I know your parents were never really… around."

 _You could say that. They'd practically left the siblings to raise_ themselves _while they were off traveling!_ It hadn't always been bad, though. But after an incident in the river, things had began to sour between them.

He clearly wasn't having this right now, so she decided to wrap it up. "What I was trying to do was… I was trying to being you two together." _For once._ "I thought that your accident" -he flinched at the mention of it- "-might be able to-"

"-To what, Christine?" he growled, interrupting her like Diane always did. "You think we're going to _bond_ over all this?" He gestured aimlessly with his bandaged hands.

"I think you could," she said quietly.

"Well you're wrong!" he cried. "So, _so_ wrong. She could never understand this— _my_ pain!"

There was a sharp intake of breath. It came not from the two of them but from a new person in the doorway.

 _Her hair's longer,_ was all Stephen thought.

Sure enough, it was Diane. She always had a knack for entering at _exactly_ the wrong times.

Christine stood up, "Dee, I- I thought you'd-"

Diane held up a hand, silencing Christine. She moved to stand in front of the hospital bed, curling her fingers around the metal frame. Impossibly, her pupils seemed to shrink as the words rasped from behind her lips. _"I_ don't understand _your_ pain?" One simple sentence, carrying with it years of rehab, seclusion and abandonment from her family, was all Diane needed to say to make her brother pale.

With that simple line, she turned on them and left the hospital.

* * *

Three years passed.

For reasons unbeknownst to her own self, Diane Strange stayed in New York. She did not hear from her brother, but Christine made many a house call.

Diane resorted to changing her phone number to avoid the woman. Only when she cornered her in a coffee shop was Diane forced to listen.

Christine told her that Stephen had disappeared and gone off to some monastery to try and heal his hands.

At that, Diane had scoffed, effectively hiding her internal worries.

The same day she and Christine parted ways became the day Diane's life changed. It was the day she (literally) ran into Mary.

Technically, it had been Mary who'd nearly run her over with that stylish vintage moped—but Diane could care less. By whoever's fault it had occurred, she was thankful for it.

A single light was lit in the apartment. Illuminated by it was a desktop, a pair of hands and the notebook they were writing in.

 _Saturday, September 17. Today, me and Mary took Will to the park. He had fun on the playground and liked the swings the_ _best_ _most. My arms are still sore from pushing him so much; we_ _enjoyed ourselves._

 _People stared at us a bit. I say (write?) "stared", but it was more like "looked". None of them were unkind. I am thankful for that._

The pen stilled in its half-cursive writing, as the writer heard a knock at the door. It was eight o'clock at night. Mary was reading Will a bedtime story three rooms away. Diane wasn't sure if she'd actually heard the knock.

Eight o'clock was late for their apartment building. A time of "late" her younger self would have scoffed at. No one left their apartments after seven, choosing to spend the darkening fall evenings with their families—that, and no one was allowed up unless they phoned through.

So who was at the door?

Diane went over and opened it, wholeheartedly not expecting the person on the other side.

His hair was trimmed, in a much cleaner state than when she'd seen him in the hospital bed. He wore casual slacks and a heavy coat to hold back the biting temperatures outside.

She stared at Stephen, numbly quiet. _What the fuck,_ was all her mind could muster to think.

"Em, hello, Diane," he said.

Her eyes remained fixated on the collar of his jacket. A number of emotions were building up inside her stomach: hate, anger, confusion.

Was he back? (Of course he was, she couldn't be hallucinating.) If so (it _was_ so) what was he doing here? She was not—could not be—the first person he'd come to.

"May I come in?" he asked calmly. "Your neighbours are beginning to notice."

Remembering her manners (though unsure if they applied to him), she stepped aside. To allow him in, Diane had to push back dozens of accusations that threatened to burst out of her throat.

"Just wait here, right?" She closed the door, eyes still locked away from his.

He didn't say anything else as she locked the door and walked down the hall to another room. From it, dim lamp light slipped through the door. That, and a kind voice reading a story.

Diane slowly pushed the door open, spilling light into the dark hallway. Stephen watched as she poked her head inside.

"Mary, I'm taking a call in my office. I'll be a few minutes, okay?"

The same kind voice called back, _"all right, sweetie."_

 _Sweetie? Office?_

As she walked back to him, Diane brushed her hands off on her sweatshirt. She glanced at him—finally making eye contact—then gestured towards the living room. "My office."

She sat down before him in a well-used armchair. Her right hand placidly picked at the fraying seam on one edge. She said nothing, further cementing the awkward silence in the room.

"May I sit?" Stephen asked.

She blinked. "Sure, of course!" _All those practiced manners: forgotten._

He moved to the other piece of furniture in the room: a leather couch positioned adjacent to the television. It was clearly designated for guests by its spotless nature and the colour-coordination of the pillows. Diane had never been one for matching (at least on purpose) her colours.

The television was muted, and with the click of the remote its light died in the room. Diane reached from her chair and twisted the dial on a modern, cube-shaped fixture. A lamp, whose light quickly replaced that of the television's.

"So…" she said. "You're back."

Stephen raised an eyebrow. "You've been talking with Christine, then?" How else would she know that he'd even left?

"Not recently." Diane shook her head. "Not since she told me you'd left, actually." Her hands were fixed over her kneecaps; every second spent immobile made them itch to move more and more. "And now you've returned and… well?" _Better? Healed? Broke?_

She had a sudden thought: _was he here for money?_

"I am better than I was before," Stephen said.

Diane nodded. "Well, glad that's settled." Had he really been healed? How on earth had that occurred…

Stephen looked around at the cream-coloured walls, pale blue curtains and the bureau her television sat on, its glass-paned doors displaying a DVD collection.

"You've done well for yourself," he stated, glancing at the wedding band on her left ring finger.

There it was. "What do you want, Stephen?" Diane said cooly.

"I- to see you," he stuttered. Her sudden change in attitude made the room feel like it had dropped several degrees in temperature.

She scoffed and stood up. "Here I am, then." _And here you are._ "Christine said you'd been burning through your money," she muttered. "-Like always, of course, just this time with no income to _keep_ your leather wallet padded."

He was startled by her sudden burst of anger, but kept his emotions and voice in check. "That's why you think I'm here?" he asked quietly. "To beg you for money?" _"Beg:"_ a word that hadn't existed in his vocabulary until late.

"What am I supposed to think?!" Diane burst out. "Last I heard—which was _three_ years ago—you'd gone off to some healing monastery in Nepal! Now you're back, wearing-" she gestured at his clothes, "-actually decent clothing, and-" she huffed impatiently. "Listen. Just because you say you got healed and I got married…" She turned her wedding ring with her thumb, "…that doesn't make things any different between us. It doesn't undo the past."

So much was going on inside her head. She was still angry and bitter, but didn't know what to do with the confusion biting at the back of her skull.

The shakes had started back up in her hands. "Gah!" she exclaimed. It was too much for her right now. She indiscriminately flung open the coffee table drawer and snatched up the stress ball. In a consistent rhythm, she squeezed it to relax her muscles—and nerves—all the while staring at the floor.

"I'm sorry," Stephen said. He was so quiet; if it wasn't for the importance of the words she wouldn't have caught them. "I'm sorry for all that happened between us… our parents-"

"-Fine. Fine: apologize. -But don't put it on them. Sure, they were shits—and certainly never helped me out—but so were you." _And me._ But tonight wasn't her turn; tonight was for him.

The two apologies were fine just for now, she surmised, as he lapsed back into momentary silence.

Diane looked at her—her and _Mary's_ coffee table. She hadn't owned any official coffee table before, only buying it after they moved in together.

"I- I'd like to show you something," Stephen said, hesitant in divulging this to her. But she was his _sister;_ his closest remaining family. Estranged as they had been, Diane deserved to know.

"Show me what?" Before he'd even taken out his sling ring, she was staring at him, apprehensive.

He chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. "It's… one thing I learned while I was away.

Stephen held out his hand. Diane stood up on her own. He shrugged, then curled his index and middle finger through the two loops. As he raised his hands, Diane pointed it out, "what is that? -Oho… _oh."_

She stepped back, away from him and the growing circle of sparks. It grew in front of them to cover the television, stopping at the height of a grown person.

Stephen looked at the portal, then back at her.

Finally, she stammered, "I've been sober for six years, Stephen. I really don't want to have broken that streak."

He heard the tone of fear in her voice and assured her, "I promise you: this is real."

 _When have your promises ever been worth anything?_ She remembered a time when he'd promised to help her with the tenth grade A&W math—even though he was two years younger. That was one of the last times she'd bothered to believe him.

"Real-? How can this be real? There's a flaming hobbit doorway in my _living room!"_

Stephen knew trust was too much to ask for just then. But he needed to show her; he had to convince her of this.

"Will you come with me?" he asked, holding out his hand. "We'll only be gone for a minute."

Diane stared at him like he was insane—because this _was_ insane. After a moment of screaming inside her head she grabbed his hand before her legs ran her from the room.

 _Someone told you once to take any cra_ _z_ _y chances that came your way._ The craziest so far had been proposing to Mary with only 600 dollars in the bank.

Stephen led her through the swirling doorway. Diane's hair whipped back and forth as they crossed. From the wind, she realized. True, mountain wind.

 _"_ _Where are we?"_ she breathed. Despite the rock in her gut, her mouth was relaxing into a confused smile. The green stretched on for miles, covering the hills in every direction she turned.

"In the Swiss Alps," he said, and smiled as her reaction turned to one of complete joy.

Diane's shock and awe was so much that she didn't even notice the cold. She let go of his hand and stepped forward into the tall hillside grasses. Behind her, Stephen took a deep breath.

Diane, hit by a sudden questioning urge, turned and said, "where the hell did you go?"

He cocked his head, "well it _is_ in Nepal."

"Right…" She turned back to the green expanse. "I'll keep that in mind."

At the same time they both heard the kind voice calling for Diane on the other side of the portal.

"Shit!" she exclaimed. She hurriedly jumped back to Stephen's side. "Can we… go back through there?"

Once they were back in the living room he let the portal spin closed. Diane's eyes lingered on the shrinking countryside for a few moments before responding to her wife's calls.

"Just a minute, Mare! Go to bed without me, okay?"

"Don't work yourself too hard," Mary giggled back. "The night's still young, De-De!"

Both Stephen and Diane's eyes bulged out of their sockets. Stephen clamped a hand over his mouth to hold in his laugh at the nickname. Diane waited in stunned silence until Mary shut the door to their room, humming a tune as she walked down the carpeted hallway.

"So, you're married," Stephen said.

Diane shut the living room door all the way. "And you make portals."

"Amongst other things," he said, shrugging.

Diane was itching for her stress ball, but felt more excited than nervous. "I think portals are enough for one night."

His apology still hung between them. Though Diane had accepted it, her thoughts on his return were still a jumbled mess.

With a twinge in her throat, she said, "I am.. better now, too."

He nodded. "I know." Though neither of them were completely healed.

"I should go to Mary," Diane said. "It's getting late."

It was 8:30. Stephen raised an eyebrow.

Diane gestured to the door. "Would I be correct in assuming you won't be leaving through there?"

"It isn't necessary," he said, only half joking.

"Right…" She shook her head. _"Doors_ aren't necessary for you anymore."

She turned to leave, her twitching fingers stuffed away in a pocket.

"Good night, Diane," he said.

She paused, just about to open the door. "Maybe… sometime next month you could come over for dinner. I can make lasagna now. That's about it, but you could meet Mary for real—and, and Will."

Stephen gulped, "I'd like that very much."

"All right." Diane nodded. "I'll call you? Or, do you not use phones anymore?"

"I can," he said, a wry smile crossing his features.

Diane opened the door a crack. "Okay then. I'll talk to you soon, Stephen."

She assumed he would have his ways of contacting her again. Diane only hoped it didn't involve another portal appearing in her living room.


End file.
